Atlanta Bible Baptist Church

Guest (Male): John, Chapter 5. I'll be reading from verses 1 through 11. That's John Chapter 5, verses 1 through 11. And again, I want to say hello and thank you for coming to all our visitors and friends.

And it reads, "After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem, by the Sheep Gate, a pool which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people—blind, lame, paralyzed—waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity 38 years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been in that condition a long time, He said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?' The sick man answered Him, 'Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.' Jesus said to him, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk.' And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed and walked. And that day was the Sabbath.

The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, 'It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.' He answered them, 'He who made me well said to me, "Take up your bed and walk."' May the Lord add a blessing to the reading of His word."

Pastor Ray P. Smith: I want to talk to you this morning about how to be a friend of God. I read an interesting story this past week. During the reign of Queen Victoria, a London doctor visited a 72-year-old lady named Maria Vincent. Her husband had abandoned her some years earlier. She was poor and lived in humble surroundings. Though it was late in the fall, this undernourished lady had neither warm clothes nor wood for a fire.

The doctor could not believe her friends would allow such a condition to exist. When asked about it, Maria said that she had no friends. Later in the discussion, she corrected herself. "There might be one, but sir, she has forgotten about poor Maria." When the doctor pressed for the identity of the friend, he was surprised to learn it was Queen Victoria herself.

Mrs. Vincent related how an unusual experience had brought her and the reigning monarch together when they were young children, and the two had been childhood friends. The doctor left, not sure whether to believe Maria or not. But when he got home, he wrote the Queen a letter relating the incident. A few days later, a letter arrived from the Queen's residence. The story he had heard was true. The Queen had not forgotten. Enclosed in the letter was a postal order for Maria to have her needs provided for. For the remaining years of her life, Maria Vincent lived comfortably as a friend of the Queen.

Now, perhaps that story might cause you to think about your childhood and whether or not you had friends who may have gone on to amass some wealth and who may or may not remember you—probably not. But that's okay. The thing is, though Maria had the Queen for a friend, we have access to someone even greater, someone much more noteworthy, much more profound than the Queen of England. We have the Creator of the universe.

Of course, since God created man, it has always been God's desire to have an abiding friendship, a fellowship with mankind. In fact, even in Genesis Chapter 3, which many of us know is a chapter that deals with the entrance of sin into the world, one of the things that happened when our foreparents ate the forbidden fruit is they heard the sound of God coming through the garden, and they hid themselves.

The question becomes, how did they know it was God? Well, they knew it was Him because that wasn't the first time that He had ever showed up. God was used to being in the fellowship and friendship, companionship with this young couple. God has always wanted to have men and women for His friends. In fact, three times in the scriptures, it calls Abraham the friend of God. Even Moses, the greatest prophet in the history of Israel—the scripture says that God spoke with Moses as a man speaks with his friend.

God has always wanted to have that time of fellowship with mankind. Even Jesus, when He came into the world, He was known as the friend of sinners. He says to His disciples in John 15, "You are my friends," under, of course, one condition: "You do the things that I've commanded you to do." Well, let's talk about friendship and what are the characteristics of a friend. Let me mention a few of them—more than three, Albert. I'm sorry.

But let's just talk about them. Number one: a friend is someone who knows you. They know more than just your name; they know more than what you look like. I got an email from classmates.com, and they're always saying someone from your past, someone from high school contacted you. And I give it its due attention—click onto the next one. It's not that I don't know or care anything about my friends; it's just that I don't know or care anything about... anyway.

That was 50 years ago. They don't look any—in fact, sometimes they post pictures of themselves not looking... and I just move on. I'm sure if I do that with them, I can just imagine because I don't look anything like I used to look when I was in high school. Anyway, a friend knows you. Someone said that a friend never gets in your way unless, of course, you're falling, and then they come and they bear you up, they catch you. That's a real friend.

Secondly, a friend is someone who loves you. They don't just say they love you, but they really, really love you. They're not like the guy that said to his wife, "Honey, I love you so much I would climb the highest mountain, I would swim the deepest river," all these things for you. And she said, "Yeah, but will you do the dishes?" Different story. Sometimes we say that we love someone, but Proverbs 17:17 says a friend loves all the time.

Number three: a friend has things in common with you. Frank Clark says, "To enjoy a friend, I need more in common with him than hating the same people." No, that's not friendship. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. You can ask the Iranians about that. They say that all of the Arab nations around them are friends until you got American military base missiles on us. They're not proving to be friends.

A friend protects you. They will guard your reputation, they will look out for you, they will care. In 1 Samuel 19 and 20, there's the story of David and his friend Jonathan. Jonathan went to the mat for David before his own father. In fact, his dad said, "Don't you know that as long as the son of Jesse, David, is alive, you'll never be king?" He didn't care; he loved his friend. And so he says, "Listen, I'll sound my dad out, and if there's any danger, I will warn you." That's what friends do—they protect each other.

A friend makes you happy. You know how they say there are some people you say they're friends, but you'll cry at their funeral, but you don't want to go on vacation with them? It's a different story. You see them coming and you go, "Oh, my god." That's not a friend. In World War I, Britain had that famous statement. They said the English don't have friends; we have allies. You're an ally. You're a useful person to me, and if you're not useful to me, then we're not friends. But that's not genuine friendship.

God sends into our lives people that we're glad to be around, and we're really, really happy. A friend helps you when you're in trouble. Remember the Good Samaritan story? This guy went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thieves. They lined the road there as you went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and they would catch unsuspecting travelers. They caught this guy, beat him up, left him for dead.

As Jesus tells it, here comes the priest. He's coming down, so that means he's coming from Jerusalem. He's not going up to Jerusalem to get his worship on; he's coming from Jerusalem. He already got his praise on, he already did his religious thing. But now he's going home, but apparently he left the religion back at the temple because he saw that guy and he went by on the other side because he didn't want to defile himself and he didn't want to get too close.

After him comes a Levite who was helping in the temple, and he saw the guy and he went by on the other side. But of all the people, a despised, rejected Samaritan saw the man. And when he saw him, he came to where he was and he helped him. Then Jesus asks the question: "Which of the men proved to be a friend to the man who had fallen among thieves?" It's not "who's my friend"; it's "who am I a friend to?" That's a very different thing.

A friend is loyal. I have a friend in Michigan, Ray Perius is his name. I would have all of our leaders; I would put them up in the pulpit from time to time that way I could teach them how to exegese the scripture and do expositional teaching and preaching, and I let them preach. Ray got up and told this story. He said there were these three guys that went fishing. While they were out there in the fishing boat on the lake, they had a moment of self-disclosure.

One guy said, "I have to be honest. I'm surrounded by all this money, and every now and then the temptation to just help yourself to a little something-something happens, and I'm not proud of it, but I have to admit that's my besetting sin." The scripture says the sin that so easily besets us, and that's my besetting sin. The other guy says, "Well, to be honest, I look at some of the ladies in the church and those honeys look really good, and I know I shouldn't, but my mouth waters."

He's going on and on and on about it. He's got a reputation, but nobody knows, but he feels that this is his besetting sin and he needs to tell it. The third guy says, "Well, my besetting sin is I'm a gossip, and I can't wait to get off this boat!" He's not a real friend; he's a pretend friend because real friends are loyal.

Two last things: a friend brings out the best in you. Proverbs 27:17 says, "Just like iron sharpens iron, one friend sharpens another." There are people who you surround yourself with, and they're smarter than you or maybe they're more skilled than you. That's why you invite them to be your friends. You don't surround yourself with losers; you surround yourself with winners so you can learn how to win. And of course, your friend is the one who brings out the best in you, and that's very, very important.

Maybe it was Dale Carnegie; he said, "My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me," and I need that. The last thing I want to say about friendship—this is just the first point, calm down. A friend is interested in your spiritual well-being. A friend cares about you spiritually. It's not enough that they loan you money, it's not enough that they'll give you a ride, it's not enough that they can do certain things for you.

If a friend is really a friend and they know the Lord, then they care deeply about your relationship with the Lord because they understand what Jesus said: "What would it profit a man if he gained the whole world and he lost his soul? What could a man give in exchange for his soul?" The thing that stands out about this particular story—just a couple of weeks ago, to be honest, we talked about friends, and we talked about these four friends in Luke Chapter 5.

These four friends had a man, a friend who could not help himself and he was infirm. So they put him in a cart, and the four of them carried him to see Jesus, and they couldn't get in because there were so many people there. So it says they climbed up the back, they went up on the roof, and they pulled up the tiles—it wasn't their house, but they pulled up the tiles and they let their friend down right in front of Jesus.

They cared about their friend so much that they were willing to spare no effort to get their friend to Jesus because they felt that getting him to Jesus was the most important thing, the best thing they could do for him. You contrast that with Chapter 5 in John, where we've got this man here lying there by the pool, and he's been there a long time. In fact, John tells us he's been there 38 years. In 38 years, not a single person has tried to help him. He had no friends.

What a sad, sad thing. But when you look at this section here, the verse that stands out—verse 5: "A certain man was there who had an infirmity 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been in that condition a long time," Jesus showed up. Now, in Luke 5, friends carried the man who could not help himself to Jesus. In John Chapter 5, the man could not carry himself, the man couldn't do anything, he couldn't get to Jesus. But you know what? Jesus came to him.

Jesus found the man in that condition. Jesus is that friend who sticks closer than a brother. What does it mean to have Jesus for a friend? Let me just mention three things. Jesus is a friend who helps me overcome sin. This man is a perfect picture of you and I in our own sinful condition. We came into the world unable to do anything about the worst condition that we have. The worst condition is not poverty, the worst condition is not illness; the worst condition is sin.

Sin in my heart, sin in my life, and I can't do anything about my sin. Everyone has sinned, Romans 3:23 says. All have sinned. Ecclesiastes 7:20 says there's not a just person in all the earth who continually does what's right and who never sins. All of us are sinners by nature and by choice, and we can't do anything about it. Just like leprosy was this disease in the Old Testament, and it was one of those diseases when people caught it, they had to pull away from everybody because it was contagious.

In fact, if you saw a person coming and you had leprosy, you had to cry out, "Unclean, unclean!" Sin is like that; it contaminates all of us. But you know, Jesus helps me overcome sin. There was a song—I'm not going to sing it, I'm just going to give you the words: "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! Oh, what peace we often forfeit, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer."

See those four words that I highlight there? I highlighted those words because I wanted to key in on some things that the scripture says about sin and our overcoming. Look at sin. 1 John 1:8 says that all of us have sinned. It says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Jesus is that friend who helps me overcome sin. He's acquainted with my grief, Isaiah says. He's familiar with... what's the difference? Sin is when you do the thing you shouldn't have done; grief is what you feel when you get the bill because you did the thing you shouldn't have done. Sin can be a word, it can be a thought, it can be an attitude, it can be an action. It can be things you did that you shouldn't have done; it can be things you should have done that you didn't do.

And you're guilty of all of them. But Christ died to take away sin and the grief that sin brings into life. And of course, the word "bear"—Christ, He's the one that carries it for us. He delivers us from sin. I highlight Hebrews 4 because I'm going to put that verse up in just a second. But peace—we have two types of peace. Romans 5:1 says we have peace with God because of our relationship with Christ, and we have the peace of God because we're able to lean or we're able to roll onto His strong shoulders all of those things that weigh us down with grief.

Jesus is able to bear all of those things. Hebrews 4:15 says since we have a high priest—a priest is someone who talks to God about people and then he talks to people about God. Jesus is our great high priest who has entered heaven. It says this high priest, Jesus—it says He understands our weaknesses. Really? Yeah, because He's faced all the same testings we do. You ever thought about that? You say, "Well, He's a God, I can't do it."

Jesus, He faced everything you're going to face. In fact, He faced more than you because Satan came at Him full force. But you know what? He put him down hard. He demonstrated that He could not sin. That's the kind of savior I need. I don't need somebody to say, "Oh yeah, man, I understand. I fell on my face too." I need somebody to say, "Let me show you how to stand and not fall on your face." That's the one I need, and that's Jesus.

But He faced all the same testings, yet He did not sin. So we can come boldly to the throne of our gracious God; there we will receive His mercy. Jesus is a merciful high priest because He's touched with the infirmities that we've been touched with, and we'll find grace to help us when we have our need. Second thing: Jesus is a friend who helps me overcome failures. I was struck by the reason that I decided on Thursday to put away my sermon on Genesis 18 and to share this passage in John Chapter 5 is because of this very next thing.

Verse 6: Jesus said to the man, "Do you want to be made well?" And at first, you might say, well, that's a dumb question. Obviously he wants to be made well. Not necessarily. Some people, they get comfortable in their sin. They get comfortable in their misery. I told you about the guy who went to the fortune teller, and she said, "You will be poor and miserable for the next six years, and then your misery will come to an end." He thought he'd get rich. She said, "No, you'll get used to it. No more misery; you're comfortable now."

And sometimes we get comfortable. Jesus asked the man, "Do you want to be made well?" But you know what the man said? Now, it's not in the New King James, it doesn't say this, but the New Living Translation says it like this: the man said, "I can't." He said, "I can't. I mean, I'm not able to do anything about my condition. I can't help myself, and I don't have any friends to help me." Jesus didn't ask him any of that. He said, "Do you want to be made well?"

And he's telling him all about what he can't do, what he doesn't have the ability to do, as if it were up to him anyway. Jesus didn't say, "Okay, come on, let me put my arm around your shoulder and help you get up." No. Jesus just said, "Do you want to be made well?" And he's giving excuses. Jesus isn't asking you what can you do to get out of your situation. He says, "Do you want help? Do you want to get out of it? If you want to get out of it, then let me help you."

He's willing to help me overcome those failures that I have in my life. The next stanza says, "Have we trials and temptations?" Trials are the things that God allows to come on our plate to expose the areas of weakness in my life so I can cry out to Him for strength. Temptations are those same experiences that God allows to come into my life that Satan tries to use to drag me down into the mud so I give up. Same Greek word, but the intent is wrong.

God has in mind building you up; Satan has in mind tearing you down. You got them both. Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share? He's acquainted with sorrows; He knows how I feel. And it says Jesus knows our every weakness. He knows you're not strong; Satan knows you're not strong too. And Satan tries to pull at the areas where you're not strong, but Jesus is able to strengthen you in those areas so that you stand.

So you take it to Him in prayer. Well, you see the words that I highlighted there. James says that blessed is the man who perseveres, he endures temptation because when he's gone through, he'll receive the crown of life. Jesus defeated Satan in Matthew Chapter 4 on those three areas that Satan comes at you: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. John Chapter 2, verse 15. But Jesus put him down.

But 1 Corinthians 10:13 says there's no temptation overtaken you but such as is common to man. You aren't the only one that went through what you're going through. You can't say, "Nobody understands, nobody knows the trouble I see." They should take that song out of the repertoire because everybody goes through same stuff. And Jesus understands how to enable you to win when you're going through that stuff. God is faithful; He won't allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation, He'll make a way of escape so you can stand up under it.

That's what He does. And of course, sorrows—those two verses in Hebrews, the one in 1 Corinthians talks about the guy who had a tryst with his stepmother, and Paul said, "Why y'all putting up with that? Put that man out of the church!" So they kicked him out. He repented. Then Paul said, "The man repented; let him back into the church." Sometimes people, they do stuff, they mess up, and we remember that forever. And we hold grudges.

I had a friend who was... we were teenagers. Teenage fellows do stupid stuff. I was lying down, minding my own business. He kind of had a can of spray paint, and he came and sprayed that paint in an area that he shouldn't spray no paint. And I thought, "What are you doing?" And so, of course, we had to come to blows on that. So you know, friends fight. Yes, we do. And of course, we didn't speak to each other again until it was time to play football.

And then you just got to put that stuff away. I mean, you want to win, so you just let it go. I see women don't understand things like that. They hold grudges for 65 years. But the guys are like, "Well, you know, I established the boundaries. You just don't do that. Okay, we're cool. Let's play. All right, you going to catch the pass when I throw it? Yeah. Okay, we're good." So it's kind of one of those things. But anyway, the ladies are going to have something to say to me afterwards, I'm sure. But y'all know it's true. Y'all know y'all be holding grudges all the time.

But anyhow, Luke 22—I put this up because it's a perfect illustration of what happens in your life and my life when we think we're all that and a bag of chips. Here is Peter. Peter the Rock. Jesus didn't even call him Peter here. He had been calling him Peter, but here He said, "Simon," that's his real name. Simon means sand. Peter means rock. But sand is... He said, "Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded permission"—permission is in italics in the New American Standard because it's not in the original; it's there to help you understand the thought.

"He has demanded to sift you like wheat. But I've prayed for you." Listen, when people are going through difficulties, they need your prayers. They need my prayers; they need our prayers. And that's why Wednesday night is one of the most important days of the week, which is why Satan fights hard against you to get online for our prayer time. Anyway, I shouldn't go there, I guess. Anyway, He says, "I've prayed for you so that your faith may not fail."

But notice this part: He says, "When once you've turned again." In other words, you're going through it. We're going to allow you to go right into Satan's little sifter. You're going to get sifted, buddy. "What? How come You won't just protect me?" Because God wants to do two very important things in Peter's life. Number one: He wants to show Peter, "You ain't all that." Because look, he says, "Lord, with You I'm ready to go both to prison and to death. I'll die for You!"

And He says, "Okay, seriously? I say to you, the rooster will not crow today until you deny Me not once, not twice, three times." He was right. Well, of course, Christ was right. Peter is not nearly as strong as he thinks he is. Neither are you, neither am I. We need Christ to strengthen us. And you don't know how much you need Christ until you fallen flat on your face and bloodied your nose, and you get up bleeding, dropping blood on the floor, and you say, "You know, Jesus would have kept me from falling, and I would not have hurt myself." And He knows that.

The second thing, of course: He says, "When you've turned again, strengthen your brothers." Peter, you're going to have a great ministry in the lives of other people. You know why? Because you're never going to get in their face acting like you're all that. You're going to remember the fact that you're really weak without My strength. And when you see them in weakness, you're going to strengthen them. When you see them struggling, you're going to understand that you struggled. You're not going to look down on them; you're going to look up to God and out to them. And that's a different way to look.

And that's why God allows you and me to go through difficulties. We need that. The last thing: what does it mean to have Jesus for a friend? Jesus is a friend who helps me overcome the problems. I've got that over that question mark; he doesn't know what to do. What do you do when you don't know what to do? You go to Jesus because He always knows what to do. He always allows you to understand and overcome the problem that you face.

That's why it doesn't make sense to run out there and bang your head against the wall. You know what happens. You get that box with all those parts inside. You look at the box and say, "That don't look hard." Then after you've spent about 45 minutes, an hour, hour and a half, your kid runs in and says, "Dad, are you done yet?" "No," which means no. And you... then after a while you say, "Wait a minute, let me go read the instructions."

They're not suggestions; they're there to tell you what to do. And it's because we don't take the time to go to the one who put the whole thing together. Doesn't that make sense? That the one who created life, the one who designed life, is the one who knows enough about how life ought to work? But we try everything but Him, and then we wonder why things fall apart.

The last stanza: "Are you weak? Heavy laden? Cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge. He's our hiding place. He's the one that we run to when we're in trouble, and then we're safe. Take it to Him in prayer. Do your friends forsake you? Your pretend friends? Nobody knows the trouble I see, nobody cares either." That's how the song ought to go. But Jesus cares. "When my father and mother forsake me," the psalmist says.

You know you've messed up when both your parents leave you alone. He says, "When even when that happens, the Lord will take me up." Jesus said, "I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you," and you'll find solace in His arms. Weakness—well, the verses are there. I highlight Matthew 11:28 because my time is getting away and I want to really drill down into that. Let's just go there and let me say this about that verse. This is one of the greatest verses in the Bible.

Jesus says, "Come to Me. Come." A lot of times we run because we're ashamed, we run because we're scared. Satan has hopped on your shoulder and said, "You know, you get serious about Jesus, He's going to mess up your life. You know that, right? He's going to mess you up. He'll make you like a missionary or a preacher or something crazy like that. People are going to poke fun at you, you know you're going to be hated." He tells you all of this stuff, and you can believe the lies if you want to. Understand John 8—Jesus says every time Satan opens his mouth, a lie comes out. He's not even capable of telling the truth. So why would you listen to the liar when he talks about Jesus?

He says, "Come to Me, all you who are weary, heavy laden." He says, "I'll give you rest." You tired? He says, "Just come to Me. I'll give you what you need, I'll give you what you want, I'll give you the rest that you're craving." He says, "Take my yoke upon you." You say, "I don't want to be yoked up." Understand that when they were teaching oxen how to plow, they take a strong, seasoned ox and they put it with a young, weak ox, and the strong ox carries most of the weight, if not all of the weight. And what he's doing is he's walking, he's teaching the young ox how to do it.

They're yoked together in pairs. Jesus says, "Take my yoke and let Me teach you. Let Me show you how to live." Sorry about that; I get the spit going and... He says, "Take my yoke, let Me teach you because I'm humble and I'm gentle at heart. I'm not going to poke fun at you, I'm not going to say, 'Oh, you tried on your own; how's that working out for you?' I'm not going to do that. I care and I love you and I'll show you how to do it. You're already going to walk through life, you're already going to work your way through life, you're already going to struggle in life. Let Me show you how to do it so that you can rest and get it done with success."

Jesus says, "Come to Me, and you'll find rest for your souls." Greatest prospect, greatest promise in the Bible. "My yoke is easy to bear. The burden I give you is light." Why? Because He's going to carry the load in the main. Praise the Lord for all of His goodness.

Well, in the three minutes that I have left: how can I become a friend of God? Let me just run through three little quick things—and I mean this one when I say three little quick things. Number one: you become a friend of God by faith. Faith in Christ's sacrifice. The scripture says John 3:16—I didn't put it up because most of us know what it says—God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him—the word "believes" means to cling to, to rely on. The one who puts their full faith and trust in Him and what He's done would not perish but have everlasting life, eternal life.

God didn't send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He came to save you. He laid down His life for you. His sacrifice is the thing that will cleanse you from your sin. It's the only thing that will cleanse you from your sin. Put your faith in the sacrifice.

And then, of course, walk in obedience to His word because He comes in and He invites men. The scripture says you confess with your mouth, Romans 10:9, "Jesus as Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. There's trusting Him, there's believing in Him, there's confessing Him as Lord and Savior; then you'll be saved. But see, the thing is, if He's Lord, then that means He's the boss because that's what Lord means.

So in other words, is He the one that you're willing to let call the shots? Or are you like the guy who's struggling down the road? He's got a 50-pound sack on his back. A guy pulls up in a wagon. "You want a ride?" "Yes, into town. Thank you!" So he goes, climbs up, and he's sitting there, and he's got the sack on his back. And after they've gone a while, the driver says, "Why don't you put that sack down in the back?" He said, "Well, you've been so nice to give me a ride, I don't want to burden you with the sack."

Sometimes that's how we do. We're like, "Well, Jesus, thank You for dying for me, but I'm carrying this," and we won't let it go, we won't surrender our lives to Him. We won't let Him call the shots. He says, "Take my yoke, let Me lead, let Me teach you," which means you have to learn, you have to listen. John 14:21 says, "He who has My word and obeys My commands, he's the one who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father."

And then the last thing: worshiping with His family. You know, one of the things that we all have discovered is that it doesn't take us long to give up. You know, it's like, "I know that I need to go out to the track and walk, and I'm going to start." And I do, and I walk at least a couple of days. Then I have an appointment, I miss a day. And three weeks later, somebody who is appointed to be the Holy Spirit in your life, your spouse, says, "I thought you were going to walk." "Yeah, I got distracted."

But it's hard to stay at it. But see, whenever there is a discipline that you struggle to put in place, just surround yourself with others to hold yourself accountable. You know why Weight Watchers is so successful? Because those ladies they come and guys, they come and they get together in a huddle, and then they got to get on that scale. If you get on the scale and all the people around you know you're heavier now than you were before we started, they know you haven't been doing... so what do you do when you're tired? You say, "I got to get on that scale."

So you go ahead and do the thing that you know you need to do, it's just that you're too weak to do it on your own. And that's what church does. Church is an accountability culture where we're able to come together, we encourage each other, we pray for each other, we strengthen each other, we teach each other, we love each other, we forgive each other. We do all the 21 different one-anothers. We do it with each other because that's what church is for. You need the church because like the movie says, "I can do bad all by myself." But I need someone else around me; I need the church. And God knows that I do.

So listen, Jesus says to the man, "Get up! Take up your bed and walk." And he quit making excuses; he got right up and he walked. Back in 2006, I had a chance to go on a missions trip to Ghana. Before we went on the trip, they required us to get a yellow fever shot. The yellow fever shot takes like six seconds, and they still wanted $230. But you know, when I was reading the history, I discovered that there was a time when yellow fever just ravaged that country and was killing folk left and right. Everybody died because of yellow fever.

And then one day, there was one man. He contracted yellow fever and he didn't die. Somehow his body adapted, his immune system was able to overcome it. And when they discovered that, they took his blood, and from his blood, they created a serum and a vaccine, and they were able to bring health to all of these people. And I read that story and thought, one man's blood brought health to all of these people.

That's what Jesus did. His blood covers and takes away your sin. He says even if they're like scarlet, they'll be as white as snow. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and He wants you to be His friend. Maybe you're here today and maybe you can say, "Well, you know, I've known for a long time that Jesus wants to be my friend and I've been holding out." Why? Why do you hold out? Why do you insist on running out and running yourself ragged when Christ can offer you rest and relief and recovery? Why?

Or maybe you're here and you say, "I never knew—I mean, I heard about Jesus, but I've never been told that I can have Him as my friend and invite Him into my heart." Well, now you know. And the question that God is asking you today is, will you accept My Son as your friend? Will you give your life to Jesus? Or maybe you're here and you're saying, "Well, yeah, I prayed and I asked Jesus to save me, but I'm sitting in that wagon and I still got that load on my shoulders. I haven't given Him access, control of my whole life." And my question is: why? Why would you labor? Why would you ride the struggle bus when you can just surrender your life to Jesus and let Him give you His peace? Let's bow our heads and let's close our eyes and let's consider what God has been saying to us today.